A Call
by Brenatb
Summary: Set after BOTL, a quick One-shot between Percy and Annabeth. Enjoy and please no flames, my first FF.


**First Fanfiction. Shout out to my Beta: bananaman48 ! Hope you enjoy... Copyrights to RR**

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After the party, Percy was feeling exhausted. Everything seemed to happen at once, His dad visiting, Paul asking for permission to marry his Mom, and everything Nico had said. There were far too many things on his mind at the moment and all he wanted was sleep. Even though he knew his problems would follow him in his sleep, he walked into his room, shut the door, and collapsed on his bed. He was sure all the day's events would be enough to put him right to sleep. But, as always, he was wrong.

He lay there trying to think of anything besides his problems. Then, like cruel karma, the worst of his problems entered his mind. Annabeth. Just thinking about her hurt. He felt like his chest was being ripped open and he didn't understand why. He wasn't sure he wanted to understand why.

He remembered a couple of weeks ago, when they were saying goodbye, how he had felt so distant from her. Thinking back on it he wished he could back in time to when things got so complicated, but the truth was he didn't even know when that was. Deep down he knew he should've told her how he felt, he should have explained to her what she meant to him, he should've, but he couldn't. Challenging Ares, battling a Cyclopes, holding up the world, and defeating a giant; easy (hardly). Telling Annabeth how he felt, not so much…

He sighed deeply. It was clear that he wasn't going to get any sleep.

Annabeth crawled into bed feeling every sore muscle ache out loud. She had run into two monsters today. Sure monsters were always in San Francisco, she'd run into them all the time (normally one every month), but two in the same day? That was more than bad luck.

She groaned as she lay down. Normally she would've passed out, but something kept bugging her, she just couldn't figure out what. And she hated when she couldn't figure something out. She let out an angry breath, and tried to count satyrs.

1…

2…

3…

4–

Something caught Annabeth's eye. She sat up, examining the wall next to her bed. Usually, as a daughter of Athena, she had a keen sense of detail. But she hadn't noticed the pattern dancing across her wallpaper. It was very small, but noticeable. Tiny sailing boats laced across the wall, one after another, as if getting ready to race. The images of boats and water immediately made her think of the one thing she didn't want to. Of him.

Annabeth collapsed back against the pillows and tried to block him out of her mind. She tried to focus on anything else besides the fact that her heart weighed a ton and her breathing felt almost painful. Annabeth stop it, he's just a stupid, carefree, immature, Seaweed Brain that doesn't deserve your thoughts! She told herself.

Finally she was able to put him out of her mind by thinking about logarithms and configuring munitions and fell asleep.

"Percy? What are you doing up?"

He looked up from the glass of milk and simply said, "I couldn't sleep."

His mother gave him a concerned look. "Hmm…" She sat down across from him and asked, "What is it, sweetheart? Is it the monsters? The dreams?"

He shook his head. "No mom, it's…its…"He felt himself turn red, "Its Annabeth."

She looked at him intently, "Tell me about it."

And so he did. He couldn't tell her exactly everything because most of it didn't make sense to him, but he tried.

When he was finished she regarded him closely, "I see…" was all she said.

"That's it?"

She sighed and said "Look, Percy I don't want to pretend that I know how you feel, but this is something you have to figure out for yourself."

She stood up to leave, pausing a second by where the house phone was. "Why don't you give her a call?"

"It's four in the morning."

She shrugged her shoulders, "Sometimes, sweetheart, when we're feeling down, we all need someone to remind us that in the end, everything will turn out okay. And that's what a friend does." She gave him a warm smile, "Goodnight, Percy."

Percy stared at the phone for almost half an hour before deciding to go for it. He picked it up and dialled her number. It rang seven times before she finally answered.

"Hello?" She sounded groggy. Percy couldn't help but thinking that she must've looked really cute right now, just waking up, her curly hair a mess and all. "Hello?" she asked again.

"He-hey Annabeth." He stammered. His mouth felt dry and his hands were shaking.

"Percy?" she said with a tiny squeak. He heart started racing. He didn't know why he was so nervous; it was just Annabeth, for Zeus's sake.

"Yeah, it's me." He answered.

She sighed, "Why are you calling me at one in the morning?"

He shuffled his feet nervously, and suddenly felt glad she couldn't see him. "Umm, well—"

"Is something wrong? What did you do, Seaweed Brain?" Now she sounded wide awake.

"No, nothing! I promise!" He reassured her. "Gods Annabeth, I just wanted to talk to you and automatically think you think I screwed up."

"Wouldn't be the first time." She muttered.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked feeling anger rise inside him.

"Nothing, just–what did you want to talk to me about?" She sounded tight. Like she was trying to control what she was saying.

Percy let her earlier comment go and said, "This is going to sound stupid, but I…I just wanted to know if you were okay?"

Silence. For a second He thought she had fallen asleep, but after a minute he heard her sigh and answered, "I'm fine." He could almost picture her relaxing slightly. "What about you?"

"I'm fine too." He realized how stupid he sounded after she started chuckling. He smiled in spite of himself.

"If that's all, I'll be going back to sleep now. Okay Seaweed Brain?" She said.

He laughed and said, "Yeah, I'm sorry I woke you up. Goodnight, Annabeth."

There was another silence and Percy thought she had hung up, and he was about to hang up himself, but very faintly he heard her say, "Percy?"

She sounded different, almost…shy?

"Yeah?"

"I miss you." She said in a small voice.

His heart did a flip and a smile spread throughout his face. "I…I miss you, too." He swallowed. "Goodnight, Wise Girl."

"Goodnight, Seaweed Brain." And she hung up.

He leaned against the wall for a long time just smiling, before he went back to his room and got some sleep. His mom was right; sometime you needed someone to remind you that things would turn out okay.


End file.
